Andrew Coyne: Liberal Party would rather be a personality cult than transform itself

With Justin Trudeau, Liberal Party choosing personality cult over transformation

Perhaps it was an impossible thing to expect. Perhaps it was even unfair. To demand that the Liberal Party of Canada, after a century and more as the party of power, should reinvent itself as a party of ideas; that it should, after a string of ever-worse election results culminating in the worst thumping in its history, ask itself some searching questions, including whether Canada still needed a Liberal Party, and if so on what basis — perhaps it was all too much to ask.

Because, on the evidence, the party isn’t capable of it. Or perhaps it simply doesn’t want to. Either it does not believe such a process is necessary. Or it does, but can’t bear it. Whatever may be the case, nearly two years after that catastrophic election, the party shows no interest in reinventing itself, still less in any healthy existential introspection. The policy conference that was to be the occasion for this came and went; the months that followed were similarly void.

And the leadership race, so long delayed, so eagerly awaited? Not the ideal place for a party to reflect on who it is and what it stands for — that’s why the race was put off for so long, to get all of that out of the way beforehand — but perhaps it was the only realistic shot. As they chose between candidates, Liberals (and “supporters”!) would also be choosing between competing visions of the party, sharpening and forcing issues that until now the party had preferred to avoid. Only that’s not really how it’s turning out, is it?

I don’t mean the candidates, some of them at least, haven’t tried, sort of. At various times, various candidates have issued the odd policy proposal that would set the party apart from its rivals — abolish supply management (Martha Hall Findlay), open telecoms to foreign competition (Marc Garneau), scrap the “net benefit” rule on foreign takeovers (George Takach). Even those candidates offering more traditional Liberal policy fare — increasingly indistinguishable from the NDP’s — have at least set out some sort of a direction for the party. And all of them might as well not have bothered.

Because the party seems determined to give itself to Justin Trudeau, come what may. Now, it is true that Trudeau has himself offered up a policy morsel or two. He favours liberalizing the drug laws and accepting takeovers by foreign state-owned enterprises in the oil sands. He opposes tightening Quebec’s language laws and boutique corporate tax credits. He was for the long-gun registry, but is against bringing it back.

But beyond that? He has his father’s views on the Quebec question, without doubt. But the only broad statement of his economic policy we have is his unswerving devotion to “the middle class.” And while the same criticism could be made of the other candidates — a grab bag of positions does not add up to a philosophy, still less a raison d’etre for the party — only Trudeau has made a virtue of his opacity. To take more forthright positions now, he argues, would prejudge the sorts of grassroots consultations he intends to hold — after he is leader.

Trudeau will spare them the hard work of looking within. He will rescue them from doubt, from debate, from having to choose to be this and not that

It’s tempting to suggest this amounts to asking party members (and “supporters”!) to accept him on faith now, on the promise that he will listen to their views later. Except to most of his followers, it doesn’t matter whether he listens to them or not: he had them at hello. Trudeau may not be wholly uninterested in ideas himself, but he is plainly the candidate of those who are. All many of them know is his name and his face, and all the rest need to know is that, for much of the population, that is enough. He will spare them the hard work of looking within. He will rescue them from doubt, from debate, from having to choose to be this and not that.

For Trudeau’s rivals, this presents something of a conundrum. It’s all very well to point out that Trudeau has not only said little of where he would lead the party, but has next to no qualifications for the job. For anyone even half-way inclined to vote for Trudeau these are irrelevant, if not positive virtues. If you have to point it out, you’ve already lost.

Besides, what is experience anyway? Is there any experience that prepares you for this job? Does it matter what a candidate’s positions are, when we all know they won’t stick to them anyway? Perhaps, as George Jonas argues (tongue in cheek) in the National Post, heredity is as good a way to pick a leader as any, genetics being at least as reliable an indicator of political talent as more conventional means.

By such rationalizations, the Liberal Party of Canada prepares to transform itself into a personality cult. Anything but define itself. Anything but choose.